First part of your question, yes. I can get into Windows fine without the driver installed. However, I'm wondering if I need to install the 12.7 beta driver in order for it to work. I suppose I could reflash and try.

No, I do not keep getting bsod's. I just get them with the bios flashed to my card, after I install the drivers (I was using 12.6 beta I believe).

I don't bother with Linux and I was doing this on a fresh copy of windows that I have installed an a spare SSD. Either way, I know how to remove everything video driver related so it doesn't matter.

I'm not sure if my card will benefit much from this bios either. The Ghz edition runs the VRAM at 1.5v while the stock versions use 1.6v. With the "boost voltage" of 1.2v, my card can actually run 1200mhz stable. The problem may lay there, with the boost voltage. Perhaps the voltage controller has a different "firmware" apart from the bios that perhaps that allows this? Don't know really.

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It sounds to me like you might need that new driver to make it work properly, then. It looks to like the GHz cards and the regular cards are physically identical, with the extra performance simply being gained by software tuning with the BIOS and driver working together to make it happen - the 7970 is inherently very overclockable, after all. So, it sounds like enthusiasts will simply be able to "get" the GHz edition with a BIOS flash and a new driver. Nice.

Tom's Hardware tested this card and found that the regular 7970 actually consumed around 5W less than the GHz card too, among other things.

That's what I was gonna post. Same thing happens to some 6950 users with 6970 BIOS. Driver sees teh difference when loading up as the OS starts, and prevents OS boot.

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Well Wizzard and the RBE creator stated they added a few encryption schematics to the 7000 series to prevent major modification.

To extent it prevents them having to rma boards due to a improper bios being used since i hear many cases of bios flashes going bad because they were not done properly or because the code was modified.

isn't that what you pay when you buy a custom gpu by an assembler ie. msi, sapphire, etc?
plus powertune boost. it rises the bar for the asseblers.

also "50 bucks more" is what cost a gtx680, if you have seen anyone around there, i'm begining to think is another informatic myth. so if you see from the other side, it isn't costs 50 bucks more, it costs the same than competition, and outperforms it

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Yeah, basically.
I'm not saying its bad, just saying to my quotee what justifies the "high price".

Again you miss the point that even the 7970GHz edition with overvoltage and OC loses to the GTX 680 in several games and where it comes on top we are talking about a 3% increase at most. So i really don't know what you are trying to say. That Some people have OCed the 7970 more ? So what ? Some will have also OCed and GTX 680 more, again so what ? We are not looking for the exceptions, we are looking for the rule and the rule is that the 7970 at stock is no match for the GTX 680 at stock and the 7970GHz edition still falls behind the stock GTX 680 in several games so if one was to slightly OC the GTX 680 it would certainly beat the 7970GHz.
I am not saying that the 7970Ghz is a bad card but it's just an OCed 7970 and nothing more, hardly something for people to get excited for.

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you mean games like cod 4 or battleforge? do you really care to play WoW on 160fps or 120fps? stop joking. these are high end cards.

go see other reviews. tpu has got some good things but you have to adjust your sight if you don't want to be fooled.

Well Wizzard and the RBE creator stated they added a few encryption schematics to the 7000 series to prevent major modification.

To extent it prevents them having to rma boards due to a improper bios being used since i hear many cases of bios flashes going bad because they were not done properly or because the code was modified.

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Sure, and it's not a bad thing, IMHO. It just means that in order to be able to pull off mods like this not only requires a BIOS mod, but also a driver mod. This shouldn't be that big of a deal, or perhaps a immensely huge undertaking, depending on how the driver works.

Frankly, I think it's rather brilliant.

Usually these dual-BIOS cards have one BIOS that you just cannot flash. SO there's no surprise that they work this way. It might be easier with a non-reference, single-BIOS card.

What are you talking ? The Radeon HD 7970 Ghz edition card comes with a stock voltage of 1.162 and boost voltage of 1.218. No overclocking has been done on this card for the review. I guess you did not see the performance summary. The GTX 680 is 2% slower at 1200p and 8% slower at 1600p. At 5760 x 1080 it gets even worse for GTX 680. GTX 680 loses to Radeon HD 7970 Ghz edition. Plain and simple. clock for clock the HD 7970 is a faster chip than GTX 680 when compared across a wide range of games. The gap grows wider as the resolution goes up.
For overclocked performance lets wait for custom Radeon HD 7970 Ghz edition OC model reviews. Then you can compare 680 OC vs Radeon HD 7970 Ghz edition OC. You are definitely trying your best to defend the GTX 680 when its proven that for ultra high resolution single monitor and multi monitor gaming the Radeon HD 7970 Ghz edition is the clear winner.

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What are you talking about ? This is just an Overclocked 7970, plain and simple, yet you all compared it to a Stock GTX 680. Do i need to continue ? Really ?

It's like getting two Stock cars...Car A (GTX 680) beats Car B (Radeon HD 7970)....Then Car B gets a tune (Overclock = 7970GHz) and beats Car A (GTX 680).....Tell me that you can see where I'm going with this.....

Personally i don't care who has the fastest card out there as long as we see New products and not the same ones "tuned".

You're missing the point though, the HD 7970 GHz Edition also has a feature similar to the GTX 600 cards where they should also overclock themselves a bit depending on the load, yet on any high-load it encounters it doesn't do so. Except for downclocking itself for Blu-Ray playback, which is really nothing new.

You're missing the point though, the HD 7970 GHz Edition also has a feature similar to the GTX 600 cards where they should also overclock themselves a bit depending on the load, yet on any high-load it encounters it doesn't do so. Except for downclocking itself for Blu-Ray playback, which is really nothing new.